


Words For Every Day

by DragonWarden



Category: Original Work
Genre: 365 day challenge, Gen, No excuses, o god what am I getting myself into, words every day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-18 18:10:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3578997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonWarden/pseuds/DragonWarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Attempting to make words for every single day</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Magicker-In-Waiting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wtb (winzler)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=wtb+%28winzler%29), [1shinymess (magpie4shinies)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie4shinies/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "This is the end? My next test begins here?"
> 
> The maester leaned back, tail crooked warily, eyeing the wand's cheery crown with trepidation. But, awake, the girl at least had the presence of mind to keep it at a dignified angle, and the grunling reminded, "You've not yet finished this test to begin another already. What will you do if you pass?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by wtb's [sketch of the day](http://40.media.tumblr.com/0a5a1f559a264a873b4fda1ec74028de/tumblr_nli2sbXAxZ1qh7n3bo1_1280.jpg):

"Greetings, magicker-in-waiting."

The girl's head snapped up, and the Burning Wand jerked sidewise. The heatless flame at its end did not flicker, but an extra bellow of smoke puffed low over the girl's head and she winced in embarrassment. "A grunling - ?"

"Maester grunling, if you please," it grunted, shifting upon its haunches, and the girl started upright from her doze, tumbling upon hand and knees in excitement.

"This is the end? My next test begins here?"

The maester leaned back, tail crooked warily, eyeing the wand's cheery crown with trepidation. But, awake, the girl at least had the presence of mind to keep it at a dignified angle, and the grunling reminded, "You've not yet finished this test to begin another already. What will you do if you pass?"

"I will take the next test."

"And if you pass that?"

"I will take the next."

"And if you pass that?"

The girl's shoulders curled warily, tone becoming uncertain. "I will take the next. Until I have passed all the magicker's tests."

"And once you have become a magicker?"

"I ... will fulfill a magicker's duties."

The maester propped a spindly elbow upon a knee. "And that is all?"

The girl's brow knit with sudden trepidation, as if worried she had forgotten something, before surging forward. "I can apply for higher ranks," she added quickly. "I did not want to appear too ambitious. But I think - I mean, I know I can do much more."

"And if you rise above the status of most basic magicker, what will you do?"

"I ... " The girl cast uncertain eyes upon the looming pillars around them, down upon her dusty knees, back upon the squat maester and its indifferent stare. "I ... can aspire to be the best." Her chin lifted slightly, eyes reflecting just a bit more of the wand's pale luster. "I can keep striving ... keep testing myself. I will make my own tests if others cannot challenge me! Why ... I bet I could become the grandmaster myself, if I try long enough!"

One long, pointed ear slanted left, mildly impressed. "And then what will you do?"

The girl's mouth worked, gaze beginning to dim, before she suddenly slapped a hand upon the ground and demanded, "What more is there to do!"

The grunling tilted its head consideringly, leaned forward, and opened its mouth. 

The girl hesitated, then leaned in by equal amount, breath held.

The maester's tongue, long and sinuous, snapped forth. With a mighty heave of its short, stout neck, the maester wrest the Burning Wand from the girl's unwary grip. The flame did not flicker.

A lunge and a gulp, a bulge of its eyes and a snap of its tail, and the maester swallowed the wand down an impossible gullet, abruptly plunging the cavern into darkness. In the shocked silence that followed, the maester belched, and a delicate wisp of pale smoke wafted briefly into existence before dispersing into the general gloom.

"Have I ... " the girl croaked, as if she had been the one to swallow an entire staff topped by an unquenchable eldritch flame. "I have failed?"

"Now, did I say that?" the maester chided, voice growing distant with the sound of claws picking gingerly across unseen rocks.

"But ... but what am I to do now!" the girl cried into the nothing around them.

"Finally, you hear me. Continue, magicker-in-waiting. My blessings upon you if you know the answer by the time you are done with all your tests."


	2. The House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The house was a museum, a closet, an attic; a place where things and memories were left or packed away to be forgotten, but not exactly lost. There were only visitors to the house, no residents ... they were all eventually evicted, one by one, often sooner rather than later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a pretty extensive dream several years ago that involved the characters described here. One day I might actually expand it out to include all the plot stuffs, but this is an experiment on how a prologue might go.

There is a house with rooms like rooms from all houses. Grand ballrooms filled with grand staircases next to humble cupboards abutting homely kitchens. Sitting rooms filled with the stately ornaments of czars next to incense-filled meditation rooms, mats worn and hollowed by ghostly knees. There were gardens both tame and wild, light that came from bulbs and torches and lamps and floating, heat-less globes. There were scripts from a thousand languages beneath pictures and around doors and in signs and labels - flowing and angular, geometric and lilting, left to right and right to left and up and down or even diagonally.

It did not matter that there were no translations, or maps to the maze of doors that might lead, one to another, into forever. There were few beyond the mice or the silent drows or the occasional bird to appreciate the variety, for the few that might stumble into the house by accident often stumbled right out of it again soon after, as willy-nilly as they had arrived.

The house was a museum, a closet, an attic; a place where things and memories were left or packed away to be forgotten, but not exactly lost. There were only visitors to the house, no residents ... they were all eventually evicted, one by one, often sooner rather than later.

Until, one day, a man stumbled in, but did not stumble out again. He passed through door after door after door, and did not step back outside. He _stayed_ , and rifled through the house's corners, and laughed and delighted at all the things he found, and one day, laid a hand upon a door and stepped through - and did not step into the next room. Nor did he step outside. Instead, he was in another room, a room he should not have reached with just one step ... the man, the _wizard_ , was learning the house's secrets, not just the misplaced and hidden things, and subverting them for himself.

The mice and drows skittered and the small birds flapped uneasily, until the wizard tired of his simple game and finally stepped through a door and went _outside_ , and a breeze seemed to brush through all the rooms at once in a collective sigh. The house resettled upon its foundations, and for a time, all was as it had been.

But then the wizard came _back_. With _others_. Stubby little figures with floppy hats and clever fingers and wide, frightened eyes that he kept close, kept _locked away_ when the house doors had never locked before.

The man was _stealing_. The wizard was taking from the _outside_ , and hiding what he stole _inside_ the house. And as the man delighted and schemed and walked in long strides that bypassed one room, five rooms, twenty rooms at a time, a pair of shadows began to follow him, trailing the dusty scent of burlap and a soft tick of clockwork.

One was girl-shaped with wispy corn-silk hair of pitch and button eyes cross-stitched upon a blank face. She rode, sometimes, or walked beside with a loose, ragdoll stride, a mechanical beast of brass and bronze, with four clawed feet and a long, sinuous neck. It possessed a great horned ruff and a long snout, and gears and springs whirred and turned beneath its aged and scuff-scratched hide, their movements like pulse and breathing.

They followed the wizard as he brought back things, creatures, rearranged entire rooms and slowly, there were parts of the house that were no longer wholly of the house, but the _wizard's_. And, one day, when the man had half-dragged a chest from the outside to the inside, the clockwork beast pounced upon it with a bellows-wheeze roar and the ragdoll girl's foot sent him sprawling upon his back, his prize lost.

Through time, the wizard's delight grew dim and his glee was replaced by snarls. The clockwork beast's clanking, ticking steps patrolled the house's many chambers, the ragdoll girl slip-sliding through the house's hidden crannies with a tumbler's nimble grace.

The wizard continued to steal and build, albeit slower than before. The ragdoll girl and the beast undid his work, but not quickly enough. And the house occasionally shivered as if buffeted by a high wind, and the birds cried and the mice and the drows hid, and doors began to lock, one by one by one ...

Until, one day, a boy stumbled into the house. And instead of stumbling back out, the house kept him ...


	3. The Mermaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a fitful groan of something settling into the silt, a muffled crack as one more thing gave into the merciless pressure of the deep. She flicked her tongue out to taste the murk that had bellowed up with this latest addition to the ocean floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had absolutely no story ideas today so I turned to a random word generator for inspiration. The words had been:
> 
> gown, seaweed, can, salt, wind, ice, trapeze, kidney

In the depths of a sea capped by ice high above, where the creatures grew older and ever-bigger, she swung in the cradle of a giant squid's arms, eels ducking into the loose tendrils of her hair, feathery crabs picking through the ragged skirts of seaweed that had drifted from the light-filled reaches above and tangled upon her fins.

There was a fitful groan of something settling into the silt, a muffled crack as one more thing gave into the merciless pressure of the deep. She flicked her tongue out to taste the murk that had bellowed up with this latest addition to the ocean floor.

The vessels had grown larger over time; nearly as large as the whales, nearly as large as her. A flick of her tail, and she was twisting easily through the invisible waters, fingers spidering across impossibly smooth planes and angles. The water sang its shape back to her even as phosphorescent points glittered in sporadic bursts across its length - the ocean denizens converging on their newest playground.

 _I cannot fit them into my bubbles anymore,_ she clicked sadly, thinking of her current collection lined up neatly upon a rock shelf; half-broken things made from alien materials, that all had some common purpose in their general shape, carefully preserved in swaths of hagfish slime. Still, just because it might not last as long exposed directly to the ocean's briny waters did not mean it was not worth collecting. _Bring it._ The squid obligingly wrapped its arms around and through the one of many and more frequent things the ages had gifted her with.

There was a sudden, vague yearning to visit the shallower water from which the skeletal remnants had come, to where the many later generations of her spawn had migrated. To test if this time the thin tides will be able to support her weight, or provide more detail than a too-bright, too-encompassing glow upon her eyespots ... 

But, unsurprisingly, the urge eventually passed; just as it had all the times before.


	4. The Captain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "For the record, we are gathered here today in the six-hundred-twenty-third year of branch 06 to make a final decision upon the viability of Terrance Bayer after we have reviewed the possible life events."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another random word generator inspiration. The pool of words I had to pick from:
> 
> eagle, hammer, beer, fleet, onion, captain, midwife, peace

The frozen scene before them seemed like a painting in chiaroscuro; artfully draped shadows about a laboring woman, a midwife dabbing gently at her temple.

Those who observed the scene were equally dramatic; an arc of three black-robed figures, backlit, their features made purposefully indistinct. Projection systems had even masked their relative heights, and when the left figure finally stirred and spoke, their voice was blurred into a pleasant androgyny; perfectly anonymous.

"For the record, we are gathered here today in the six-hundred-twenty-third year of branch 06 to make a final decision upon the viability of Terrance Bayer after we have reviewed the possible life events. Due to the subject's remarkable nature and the timing of his existence in the greater galactic history, there have been an unusually large number of key aspects to oversee, and so proceedings have been extended to - "

"Oh, get on with it," the center figure managed to convey in a grumble, noticeable even through the filter that attempted to strip emotion and potential bias from their tones. "If he wasn't a difficult subject, we wouldn't even be reviewing his case. We may have all the time in the universe, but we do still have a backlog of cases."

A conspicuous pause followed before there was a particularly mellow-fied, "Very well." A clearing of the throat, and then the left figure intoned, "In the case of Terrance Bayer, how do you decide?"

The right figure, silent up till now, said unhesitantly, "Unviable. His potential in 3897 to bring about the rise of The Hammer and the Eagle is too dangerous to condone."

"Even when weighed against his potential to bring peace to the Sagittarius Sector as the captain of the Archion fleet?" the center figure was quick to jump in.

"That was swiftly followed by the Vitilia Plague brought by the invading forces - "

"As if that is enough to offset the ceasefire and settlement of a millenium-long war, and let's not forget that after The Hammer and the Eagle came a flowering of culture and philosophy that has not been witnessed since - "

"And you think that is justification enough for the loss of - ?"

A sharp rap of knuckles brought the two quarreling heads around, and the left figure noted, "We have been over this already during past reviews. Also, there is only so many downstream events we can attribute directly to his influence, and that does not even account yet for the possibilities in which he did not influence anything at all."

"And so, we return to an even older argument, that our reviews are statistically little better than a coin toss, yes?"

The left and the right figure turned their heads to regard their third companion in patented astonishment for the gauche statement, but the only apology the latter eventually offered was a loud sigh and a return to the topic at hand. "I vote viable. If nothing else but to be done with this."

The left figure, as the tiebreaker, waited a suitably weighty length of time before finally intoning, "Unviable. Terrance Bayer will be pruned from the primary branch and the nearby secondaries as well."

"And so we police our status quo rather than our future - "

"Moving on - " the left figure overrode his center compatriot, "to the case of Emilia G. White ... "


	5. The Gatekeeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old machinery squealed and clunked, ponderous mechanics eventually revealing a ten foot gap. Through it, one could see the rest of the wall's thickness - twenty strides deep - a narrow strip of yellowed earth beyond, and something glittering bright and diamondine in the distance, like a spill of jewels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time, it was wtb providing the random words! \o/
> 
> box, radio, photographs, socks, old machinery

A man sat upon a box, tilted until his boots angled off the cracked earth, his back against the shadowed bulk of the wall that marked the edge of the empire. The wall itself was a declaration of the empire's engineering might; composed entirely of metal, marred only by dust, looming forty feet overhead in a slight outward slant and stretching to either side as far as the eye could see. Built leagues past the nearest settlement, it was the empire's first line of defense against the Waste ... and its lone gatekeeper whistled off-key to himself as he shuffled through a thick stack of filmplasts, their edges opaque with age.

"Please ... please, I seek sanctuary ... "

The man looked up at the plea, revealing a lean, weathered face with a sprout of grizzled stubble along his jaw and ringing his skull in wisps beneath the standard issue gatekeeper's hat. "You got a letter of introduction?" he asked his unexpected visitor.

The man - even leaner and more worn than the gatekeeper - blinked. "I - what? Why would I have a letter of introduction?"

The gatekeeper leaned forward until box and feet have landed with a thump. "Now, see, I can't just let everyone on in, can I?" he noted reasonably. "Otherwise, everyone would just be claiming sanctuary and crowding through. Maybe you've got some other ID on you - ?"

"Are you crazy?!" The man swept an arm wide, indicating the long stretches of blasted land behind him, the black hills in the dim distance, the few stunted, withered remains of vegetation. "Have you been coddled by the empire for so long that you don't even know what's out there anymore?"

"All right, calm down now," the gatekeeper rose to his feet, one hand raised in a gesture of peace. "This isn't all just for me, okay? Truth is, things've changed the last years. Not many's making it to the empire these days, and I don't wanna get your hopes up - "

The man growled, and as soon as the gatesman stepped within range, lunged forward to throw an elbow into the gatekeeper's jaw and stole the firearm holstered at his hip. As the gatekeeper fell with a surprised grunt, the man brandished the weapon and shouted, "Do you know what I've been through to be here? What I've sacrificed? I've killed to get this far, and don't think I won't kill you if you don't open that gate right now!"

The gatekeeper grudgingly sat up, the stack of filmplasts he had been looking through - photographs of people and places, vacation tours and advertisements - scattered around his hips as he gingerly massaged his cheek. "Fine, fine, just settle down, I'm not used to so much excitement these days." Casting the man a dirty look, he muttered a command into the radio built into his cuff.

The man whirled around at the first groan; a hollow, cacophonous grind like a waking giant yawning. A seam appeared in the previously featureless wall, and as the panels retreated, the man belatedly traded his attention between his aim and the widening gate, though he never quite covered his gape.

Old machinery squealed and clunked, ponderous mechanics eventually revealing a ten foot gap. Through it, one could see the rest of the wall's thickness - twenty strides deep - a narrow strip of yellowed earth beyond, and something glittering bright and diamondine in the distance, like a spill of jewels.

"Yes," the man breathed, and after a glare at the gatekeeper, turned upon his heel to run through the opening.

Ten paces in, there was a sharp, electric buzz. A tiny spurt of flame licked briefly at the man's back and a puff of fine powder wisped up from the ground a few inches before him. The man stumbled and fell.

The gatekeeper picked himself up, brushing the most egregious stains off his already battered uniform, and ambled over to gently extricate his firearm from the man's lax grip.

"Now, I hadn't wanted to burst your bubble," the gatekeeper noted, crouching to look into the dying man's staring gaze, "but I'm afraid that's about the only thing that's still working hereabouts." He slapped his firearm with the heel of his hand a few times, squeezed the trigger - with no effect - to demonstrate its dry charge, and re-holstered the defunct weapon.

"You see," he continued companionably as he took a hold of the man's wrists, half-stood, and began to drag him through the rest of the gate, "I know all about the Waste - "

As the wall's armored face fell away, they revealed that what lay within was a mirror of what lay without.

" - and the empire knows all about the Waste - "

Yellow-brown dirt, sere and dry. Skeletons of what had once been towering trees, arrayed in geometric lines, their branches bare. No sound, of birds or distant traffic, not even a breeze to relieve the smothering air.

" - 'cause, see, the Waste is here too. Has been for a while now. We all know about the Waste."

The gatekeeper dragged the man around, stopping beside a handful of other half-mummified husks, facing the distant ruins. The mirage upon the horizon used to glitter at night too; now, it only reflected the light of the day.

"Hm, dead already?" the gatekeeper sighed, nudging the freshest body in his collection with a toe, before hunching down to sort through pockets and clothes.

"Not even a stick of gum," he eventually sighed, looking down at the only prize he had claimed - giving his toes in their new non-holey socks a pleased wriggle before stuffing them back into their boots.

"You really were a sorry bastard. Well, at least you still ended up in a better place than I am," he mused, then, whistling off-key, strolled back through the gate as it slowly ground shut behind him.


	6. The Eagle and the Fish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The eagle would perch upon the urn's rim, deadly talons clicking against the fired clay, but they never reached down into the water, only the soft, soft feathers flicking playfully at the surface. The fish, meanwhile, would circle within the eagle's shadow, unafraid, even flirting with an occasional splash of water and forcing the bird to hop aside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word challenge came from wtb again: hourglass, fire, eagle, fish

The hourglass was a utilitarian thing, braced with old, scalded wood that had suffered from many a too-close experiment. But the glass itself was still flawless, faithfully polished to perfect translucency. Too many things in an alchemist's work depended on timing, and this particular alchemist prided himself on his thoroughness.

Even now, he watched the last bit of time slip through the hourglass' waist, hands poised. When the last grain of sand fell, he released the feather and the fish scale with it. Twin bursts of light erupted, and where the former had fallen, fire licked harmlessly within its nest of twigs. Where the latter had dropped, water roiled in its ceramic urn. Elation filled him as the turbulence slowly, slowly subsided from both.

Within the nest, a smooth blanket of feathers shimmering copper-gold and earth-brown fluttered, resolving into pinions and coverts. Two wings flapped and mantled, then resettled while round, golden eyes blinked, a hooked beak clacking once.

Within the urn, the water stilled to glassy smoothness before it was shattered by a flick of silver. Droplets sprayed past the brim while wavelets lapped to the walls and back, settling while a shadow turned in graceful circles at the bottom.

"Welcome, friends," the alchemist declared.

And friends they were, even as disparate as they were - one of the element of air, and the other of the element of water. The eagle would perch upon the urn's rim, deadly talons clicking against the fired clay, but they never reached down into the water; only the soft, soft feathers flicking playfully at the surface. The fish, meanwhile, would circle within the eagle's shadow, unafraid, even flirting with an occasional splash of water to force the bird to hop aside.

The alchemist, observing this, was greatly pleased, for he deemed his experiment a success - that two creatures, ordinarily predator and prey, when taken from the context of their environment and upbringing, would be but blank slates upon which could be written entirely different natures. And so he spread the word among his peers, that in a week's time, he would invite them to his home to view a wonder.

When they came, he arrayed them before a curtain, and explained what he had attempted to do. As the whispers of marvel and skepticism began, he drew the curtain aside with a flourish, and declared, "Behold! A predator that is not beholden to a predator's nature, nor a prey to its fear. For weeks now they have been but friends, though I had crafted them as an eagle and a fish, and it is an eagle's nature to eat the fish."

And in that moment of inattention, while the alchemist's back was turned upon his creations, there was a sudden thrash of sound and an outcry from the audience. The alchemist whirled around, but it was too late - he was only fast enough to see the silver flash of the fish's tail as it disappeared into the eagle's beak, and the eagle gulped it down.

"Why?" the alchemist cried, betrayed. "Why have you done this to your friend?"

The eagle blinked its round, golden eyes and replied, "Friends you declared us, and friends we were. But now, did you not say I am an eagle, and is it not an eagle's nature to eat fish? So you have labeled me, and so I am."


End file.
